Mad Quickies 10.17

On this day: in 1604, German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed a supernova, now known as Kepler’s Star; 1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany; 1957, French author Albert Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature; 1888, Thomas Edison filed a patent for the Optical Phonograph; 1990, IMDB was created.*

from the page
This visualization shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through December 2007. The visualization does not include a narration or annotations; the goal was to use ocean flow data to create a simple, visceral experience.

This visualization was produced using NASA/JPL’s computational model called Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean, Phase II or ECCO2.. ECCO2 is high resolution model of the global ocean and sea-ice. ECCO2 attempts to model the oceans and sea ice to increasingly accurate resolutions that begin to resolve ocean eddies and other narrow-current systems which transport heat and carbon in the oceans.The ECCO2 model simulates ocean flows at all depths, but only surface flows are used in this visualization. The dark patterns under the ocean represent the undersea bathymetry. Topographic land exaggeration is 20x and bathymetric exaggeration is 40x.